Pages

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Long before I started posting drawings on the internet, I used to be able to come up with comics and comic ideas lickity-split, which must've been the reason why I thought having a webcomic would be a good idea. Alas, I have not been able to maintain this one on a regular basis, perhaps because I now have higher standards and it takes me longer to finish comics than before.

One of my older comics featured a Microraptor. (I mostly didn't bother to come up with names for my comic series, though I think I considered calling this one Microraptor's Diary.) It was essentially a Dinosaur Comics ripoff, with each strip using the same illustrations but different dialogue (though I sometimes cheated by changing the expressions slightly). I'd like to gloat that at least my comic actually talked about dinosaur-related topics, but, having found and reread it, that claim would not be true at all.

The general storyline of the comic was that the Microraptor came down from its perch and chatted with a CaudipteryxSimilicaudipteryx and a "Cryptovolans"Jeholornis. In the last panel a Volaticotherium and an Eomaia two Liaoconodon would comment on the dinosaurs' discussions.

Updated template for my Dinosaur Comics ripoff. My original drawings are a bit too poorly-drawn and inaccurate for my liking, so I've redrawn and updated them for this post.

Then there was this series about a group of dromaeosaurids who lived in the same household for some reason I never bothered to specify.

From left to right: Updated designs for Ripper the Utahraptor, Snapper the Austroraptor, Slasher the Deinonychus, Chomper the Dromaeosaurus, Pouncer the Velociraptor, Leaper the Microraptor, and Nipper the Bambiraptor.

The comics I drew for this one were mostly short stories spanning several pages rather than four- or six-panel comics. I didn't draw it long enough for me to flesh out most of the characters' personalities and characteristics, though most of them shared a macabre sense of humor. The exceptions were Pouncer, who was essentially a prototype of Savape, being obsessed with killing (the others, though they appreciated black comedy, were not as into the act of killing as her), and Nipper, who was her personal butt monkey. A running gag was to have Nipper killed in one panel only to have him inexplicably alive and well in the next. This was really a fate that could befall any of the characters (frequently courtesy of Pouncer's bedroom doorway, which was a guillotine that decapitated anyone who passed through it), but only Nipper was ever actually deliberately killed by the others.

Personally, my favorite out of my old comic series was one starring an unnamed MicroraptorGraciliraptor and its friends, Buck the Incisivosaurus and Quill the Psittacosaurus.

Redrawing of one of the strips I drew for said series.

Running gags for this one included the Graciliraptor possessing or being aware of anachronistic objects (as shown in the above strip with a book), Buck being berated for being a plant-eating theropod, Buck gnawing through things like a rodent (and making carvings of various things by doing this), and Quill being able to use his tail bristles like porcupine quills (hitting objects or other characters with his tail and turning them into pincushions).

And then there was that time I drew the entire plot of Raptor Red in comic form, but that's both too horrible to post here in its original form and too long to redraw as a more updated version.